As internet connected mobile devices become ubiquitous, people are sharing more and more about their lives. For example, many people track how many steps they take, where they've been, and what they're buying. For some services such as photos and comments on social media, the technology allowing people to select what to share and with whom has become fast and simple. Many photo applications, step counters, and survey apps have integrated sharing capabilities that allow users to select how the collected data is distributed.
The ability to quickly and easily share a device's location, however, presents unique challenges that have been more difficult to overcome. Some reasons for this is a result of the non-static nature of a user's location, how quickly that data becomes stale, the sensitivity and security of location data, the resource intensive nature of gathering and distributing location data, and the difficulty of addressing all these aspects into a user-friendly environment. Accordingly, previous systems dealing with location data sharing have not adequately overcome these challenges.
The techniques introduced here may be better understood by referring to the following Detailed Description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference numerals indicate identical or functionally similar elements.